Scope and Contents: The collection is made up primarily of the letters from Martha Smart Bates Dunlap to her foster mother, Mrs. James V. Bates. The letters begin with Dunlap's first year at boarding school in 1852 and continue from her student days through to her tenure teaching in Indiana and Virginia, and on through to her years as a wife and mother, until the death of Mrs. Bates in 1909. There are also papers collected by Charles H. Dunlap, Martha Smart Bates Dunlap's husband, which include family letters, receipts, and business papers from the 1870s and 1880s concerning their farm and the Red Sulphur Springs, in which they had a one-third owner's interest and which they spent about ten years trying to sell. Other papers and letters written to and from later Dunlap generations, including Martha Smart Bates Dunlap's children and grandchildren, are also included. There are reproductions of family photographs and a long descriptive account written by Charles E. Dunlap, Martha Smart Bates Dunlap's grandson, about his recollections of the West Virginia farm, as well as a Civil War medal and postage stamps.